Brussels – January 16, 2024 – The OpenWallet Foundation (OWF) announced today the elected Governmental Advisory Council (GAC) team that will head the Council. As a result of the recent Elections, the GAC voting participants elected Carol Buttle, United Kingdom, as the GAC Chair for 2024. David Magard, Sweden, and Fabio Budris, Argentina, were elected Vice-Chairs for the 2024 term.
The OWF facilitates trusted digital ecosystems by bringing multiple stakeholders to constructively build open-source components for digital wallets that are portable, highly secure, privacy-preserving, standards-based, interoperable, and multi-function, advancing inclusive access to public and private services. In this context, the GAC is a critical catalyst for a safe and sound global digital economy. The GAC’s key role is to advise the OWF Governing Board on various public policy issues that impact digital wallets’ future development and regulation and encourage multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Marie Austenaa, Chair of the OWF Governing Board and Head of Digital Identity for Visa in Europe said: “The Open Wallet Foundation has an important mission to encourage the availability of wallets that are privacy preserving, secure, allow consumer choice, and that are interoperable across services and eco-systems. We see that wallets will be an important tool for consumers to interact securely and conveniently with trusted digital services such as identity and payment. In this context, governments have an essential role to define the trust framework and necessary regulation to ensure that consumers are protected, that wallets are interoperable across borders, and useful for both private and public sector services. I am excited to see the strong participation of governments in the OWF GAC and look forward to working together.”
Carol Buttle, the elected GAC Chair for 2024, is the Head of Certification, Assurance and Security CISO, Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology, United Kingdom. She brings several decades of experience in the Counter Terrorism, Military, Defence, Government, and Healthcare sectors, developing Digital Identity solutions, wallets, and the UK Government’s Trust Framework. Additionally, her extensive involvement with governments gives her the experience to contribute to other governments’ challenges in finding solutions to the complexities, barriers, and interoperability issues that confront digital identity ecosystems, specifically wallets and personal data stores.
“I am delighted to chair this important group. Sharing best practice and ensuring interoperability underpins the very foundations of providing trust in wallets in the private and public sector. The acceleration of interest in wallets and personal data stores in both sectors is an exciting challenge and one that benefits from open and transparent debate in groups such as the Open Wallet GAC,” said Carol Buttle, OWF GAC Chair.
The Vice-Chair, David Magård, Senior Advisor, Bolagsverke, Sweden, also brings much experience to his role as a specialist in digital identity and public policy within the European and Swedish jurisdictions.
The Vice-Chair, Fabio Budris Klaz, Project Manager SSI, Secretariat of Innovation and Digital Transformation, Buenos Aires City Government, Argentina, brings his expertise in technology and innovation concerning eGov services.
With the new GAC leadership that reflects a balanced representation of the geographic and development diversity of the GAC participants, the Council will strengthen its role and explore ways to bridge the government’s requirements with the private sector’s expectations. Moreover, the GAC is committed to identifying opportunities to solve interoperability and technical challenges to ensure digital wallets’ desired security, privacy, and user experience.
Daniel Goldsheider, OWF Executive Director, said, “Digital Wallets hold credentials issued by public and private entities. Both sectors have a lot to gain by cooperating with each other. I thank Carol, David, and Fabio for their time and can’t wait to work together.”
Governments worldwide join the GAC to continue shaping the innovation and future of the digital economy at the national and global levels, including Argentina, Bhutan, China, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA, and more than a dozen are on the pipeline. To learn more about the GAC, please contact the GAC Secretariat at gac@openwallet.foundation
For more information about the OWF and how to get involved, please visit openwallet.foundation.
About OpenWallet Foundation
The OpenWallet Foundation (OWF) brings developers together to collaborate on standards-based OSS components that issuers, wallet providers and relying parties can use to bootstrap implementations that preserve user choice, security and privacy. With the Government Advisory Council, OWF brings the public and private sector together to work towards open, secure and interoperable digital wallets. OWF is an open initiative under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation and headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. For more information, please visit openwallet.foundation.
